I bought a TNG book from Forbidden Planet on Saturday. It contains a selection of articles from "Star Trek Magazine", published by Titan since 1995.

I was reading an interview with Brent Spiner (date unknown), where he mentioned how there had been talk of giving Data an ageing chip. Spiner was 38 when he first played Data - and 53 when he played the role for the last time. He did mention how his ageing would have become problematic had he played the role for much longer, hence the discussion about an "ageing" chip.

It's all academic now. There was talk of a TNG movie after NEMESIS, but it never happened.

And it was established in canon that Data would NOT age. "All Good Things..." showed a twenty year old Data who noted that he had to add a skunk stripe to indicate that he was aging, because he didn't show it. (Also another way to differentiate Data's appearance in the future that was done in two previous time periods by differences in uniform.)

If it had ever come up, it might have been explained by his attempts to continue conforming to humanity, a creation-long* dream... but why bring it up? Was it truly an elephant in the room that needed to be mentioned?

If it had ever come up, it might have been explained by his attempts to continue conforming to humanity, a creation-long* dream... but why bring it up? Was it truly an elephant in the room that needed to be mentioned?

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"Side effect/subprogram of the emotion chip". And then never mention again.

I thought they went with the wrong option in "..All Good Things" - instead of Data not aging at all, I thought it would have been better to show him visibly older than his Enterprise colleagues. He was constantly striving to be human, and by that time he would have accepted the aging process as a part of the human experience. Data would at least try to appear to have grown older in an attempt to capture the experience of aging. And like most of his efforts in feeling human, he would inevitably and tragically fall short.

It would have also opened up the option of a late career reunion for the actors. I can't stand that they are all still around and we have seen nothing since NEMESIS. At this point, I think the best option for a TNG show is an animated show in the style of STAR WARS: REBELS.

It would have also opened up the option of a late career reunion for the actors. I can't stand that they are all still around and we have seen nothing since NEMESIS.

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I hate that NEMESIS was the last word for TNG on the big screen. I would have liked one more movie, perhaps with John de Lancie's Q.

At the very least, DS9, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE should have been given a big-screen outing before Paramount even considered hitting the reboot button with JJ Abrams.

I saw INSURRECTION at the cinema with a friend, Steve. At the time, we had a beer after the film. And I said something like, "I'm sure DS9 and VOYAGER will get a big-screen outing at some point." It felt like the natural course of events. TNG had jumped to the big screen, so why not the other shows.

I'm not a fan of ENTERPRISE, but that deserved a big screen outing over Abrams' work.

Michael Dorn, in an issue of "Star Trek Magazine" published around 2003/04, mentioned how he and the cast were definitely keen to do another TNG movie.

I've always been curious about plans for Data after "Nemesis." They set up a Data look-alike, B4, as his apparent replacement, but that wouldn't address Brent Spiner's aging unless it was to be a computer-generated Data using Spiner's likeness in future films.And in last year's Star Trek anniversary special on the History Channel, Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine of "Voyager")said she was approached to appear in a ST:NG film, which suggests she might have replaced Data. By the way, I think the idea of Data attempting to age to be more human is too interesting a concept not to develop a story around.

And in last year's Star Trek anniversary special on the History Channel, Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine of "Voyager")said she was approached to appear in a ST:NG film, which suggests she might have replaced Data. ++++++++

I was under the impression that Ryan was approached as a potential replacement threat to Marina Sirtis, during the latter's pay negotiations for NEMESIS.

In a video I watched recently, Spiner was answering questions at a con and mentioned about being asked to play Data again by a director. He mentioned his age preventing that, but was told by the director that he could be de-aged with CGI.

There still is an opportunity to do a post-Nemesis show, set far enough in the future (perhaps 27th or 28th century, but not as far as the TCW era mentioned in ENT) with a completely new crew except for Brent Spiner's Data. No need to de-age him with computers, just pay lip service to a few failed attempts to blend in to humanity by 'antiquing' himself. Stuff like the skunk stripe is a process -- he could have attempted to sculpt new faces (or whole heads), and it's been shown that his skin-like material can get nicked or bumped or be changed (disguised as a Romulan, ISTR). Heck, if you want you could explain that Data's positronic data still survives and using B-4 as a temporary body opened up new possibilities he had never considered. If this new show negated or pissed on NEMESIS' ending I'd accept it in a heartbeat.

Spiner would be great hook for a new show, better than some crayola colouring book character designed to tick all the racial and the gender letter code check boxes. It's not like this has't been done before with Nimoy playing Spock in TNG (just wish they had written a less boring-as-shit episode to use him in). They've even done this with Spiner in ENT, playing an ancestor of his father. At some point with the character's ability to change established you could transition to a new actor when Spiner wanted to leave.

Yep, I know what you're thinking but even the best Sci-fi steals shamelessly from it's peers -- Doctor Who is no exception, with near-complete ripoffs of Quatermass and Hammer Horror films. Time for Star Trek to steal a 40+ year-old TV concept and put their own spin on it, I say.

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